Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, reminds everyone Australia have lost three of their past five Test series.

Amid all the backslapping, it is a point worth pondering. Ricky Ponting's side has slipped to fourth place in the rankings. Along the way, captain and selectors have blundered, with the wrong teams chosen, pitches misread and puzzling tactics pursued at critical moments.

Admittedly, it has not all been bad. Australia performed admirably throughout a long stint overseas. The one-day side surpassed itself. But Test cricket is the real deal, and in that arena Australia have fallen back.

Australia’s first Test squad was named on Thursday and there was no spot for Phillip Hughes. In the Australian Malcolm Conn says Hughes will have to repeat his prolific form of the past two seasons to get back into the top team.

Hughes’ coach Neil D’Costa tells Will Swanton of the Sydney Morning Herald why he is relaxed about his charge’s future.

The advent of protection for batsmen from the late 1970s has been the biggest change to the game since the introduction of overarm bowling. It has altered profoundly the balance between bat and ball ... Nobody, bar Richards probably, is crazy enough to suggest that helmets should be banned. Nobody wants to see people dying for their sport. But to suggest that Tendulkar — or, indeed, any modern, armoured or, to use Richards’s phrase, “pampered” player — is the best ever is demeaning to those former greats who stood at the crease in the knowledge that their next ball could be their last.

They are trying to pick a fight with Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower. You have to admire them for this. It's the equivalent of trying to goad a right hook from a Carmelite nun. England's cricket captain, who has the impeccable manners and smiling geniality of Lord Peter Wimsey and Boris Johnson combined, is generally acknowledged to be the nicest man in sport. The mild-mannered Flower, meanwhile, he who made the stand of his life against Robert Mugabe's wicked rule in Zimbabwe, is presumably rather beyond such trivialities as what Arthur thinks of his coaching style.

At a rough estimate, Paul Collingwood's career has consisted of 10% talent and 90% perspiration. He could not have done it without the sweat, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

No player of any sport anywhere has so epitomised the notion of making the most of the ability at his disposal. In its way it has been a miracle because when the well, never full, has run dry, he has somehow been able to re-stock it. Sometimes he has needed a dowsing rod as much as a bat.

Lord's is just the perfect mix of new and old. There are some historic places that you respect but they just seem run down, perhaps in need of a lick of paint. But all the new stands at Lord's complement the splendour of the pavilion perfectly and the proposed new structures at the Nursery End look to be perhaps the best yet.

Plans to redevelop the ground are exciting but there are fears the debt could compromise the MCC's position, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.

Lord's is not known as the home of the sport because it's prepared to sell its soul to the highest bidder. It has its reputation because it's an arena where everyone who enters – player or spectator – feels a sense of tradition and history. Even now, 30 years after first entering the ground, I feel privileged when I drive through the Grace Gates or walk through the Long Room. Renaming such areas of the ground, which would be inevitable should rights be sold, would cheapen the experience. Looking at the dressing-room honours boards that represent those who have scored hundreds or taken five-wicket hauls at the ground, would become like reading the menu at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.

Alone of the three forms, alone also among major sports, Test cricket is exclusively a daylight game. In its heyday that did not matter because all sport was played in the daytime. But for 25 years sport has been moving into the night. The biggest football fixtures are played after dark, the biggest tennis matches, too. At the Olympics, the biggest days are nights.

In some countries, a Test match is staged and no one turns up. The Kiwis play on oddly shaped grounds before a smattering of spectators. Stands in Sri Lanka and Pakistan echo as a five-day match unfolds. South Africa offers free tickets to busloads of schoolchildren. Bear in mind that only nine supposedly cricket-mad nations play Test matches. Their teams contain all the dynamic and glamorous performers around and still the matches are played to almost empty houses. If they cannot hold an audience, what price the rising nations?

This is a huge scam and even the governing body of the PCB, which is supposed to bring some sort of transparency in the working of the board, has so far failed to make their presence felt. The few voices of dissent from a couple of members from time to time in the meetings did little but not enough to go past the deaf ears of the PCB chairman who could have done the game some service had he not so far resorted to arbitrary decisions.

The baton has passed from Brett Lee to the next generation, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It does not seem long ago that Brett Lee was a teenager playing for Campbelltown in the under-21 comp, and scaring the wits out of batsmen. Now his four- and five-day career seems to be over. Plain and simple, he can no longer last the pace. Cricket is not a sentimental game. Choosing him is too risky.

In the same paper Jamie Pandaram speaks to Josh Hazlewood, an 18-year-old fast bowler with a big future. In Queensland Robert Craddock looks at Alister McDermott, another teenager on debut, in the Courier-Mail.

Strauss, 32, plays a straight bat. “No, not at all. It surprises me that people even say that. Cricket boils down to crucial periods of play. In a five-day Test match there will probably be two sessions that define which way the game goes. In three games, we won those crucial sessions.”

Following up to Sir Viv Richards' interview with the Observer yesterday, in which the legend lamented the wearing of helmets and body armour and the effect it has on some modern batsmen, Alan Tyers writes on Cricket365.com that it's hard to see how helmets could now be outlawed. You can't un-invent technology, and it's inconceivable that the ICC could forbid the wearing of something that could save a batsman's life, he says.

Of course, Sir Viv, who famously never wore a helmet himself, has got more right to speak than almost anyone else alive about the matter. But it must have made batting a bit easier, knowing that you had Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner et al on your side - not just because you didn't have to face them - but because you knew that they could return with interest any punishment that their Windies batting colleagues received. Maybe if he'd had to play for England in the 1980s against the West Indies he might have considered, even for a second, the merits of the lid.

It does not convince those who believe that the young are being deprived of the chance to watch cricket on television and thereby become fascinated by the game’s beguiling charm. Since it entered most houses in the 1950s, television has been the main means of creating cricket lovers for life. The 2005 series, arguably the best Anglo-Australian series ever, was, a national event and, regularly, front-page news.

Cricket and Watson have invested a huge amount in each other. In the years when they had Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as their banker blue-chip shares, the Australian selectors considered Watson their little speculative oil rig which might have three bad years but might strike when they need him most. Watson is not quite there yet. But he is close. It's eight years since Australia chose Watson on a Test tour of South Africa and during that time he has played only 11 Tests with his 96 one-dayers.

Watson is an interesting character who is a much better player than he is widely given credit for. He is such a fine batsman that in a year's time – with Ponting, Katich and Hussey in their 36th year – he may well be behind Michael Clarke as the second best batsman in the country. Some people say that his bowling is too mechanical but we must forgive him for that. After breaking down so many times he is a bit like a waiter who has just spilt the drinks heading out with the next tray. If he is taking things a bit cautiously and carefully you can sort of understand it.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck runs the rule over the gallery of stars who turned out for New South Wales in a one-day game on Sunday, and who will be hoping for place in next week's first Test.

Among the bowlers, Brett Lee did not advance or harm his case. His persistence has been commendable. Nine months ago his chances of playing Test cricket again seemed remote. Now he is back in the reckoning ... Stuart Clark was serviceable, nothing more, and it's hard to see him holding his place at the Gabba.

Kapil Dev has no doubts about Sachin Tendulkar's performances. He knows Tendulkar's record over 20 years is impeccable. But he still feels he is an under-achiever. Read what Kapil has to say in his column for the Asian Age.

When I say all this I mean it as a compliment to his talent and a criticism of his under achievement. I firmly believe that for a batsman of Sachin's talent, he should have made 10 Test double hundreds, a 300 and at least one 400. In the same breath, I would say that I would ideally have liked to see him go from 30 to 50 in three overs and to go from 50 to 80 on any pitch, against any bowling in 5 overs. He may use up another 5 overs to get to 95 and then safely get his century. Here is a man who can hit sixes at ease than anyone else in world cricket but after 50, he usually takes 5 overs to get to 55.

In DNA, Ayaz Memon writes that had it not been for Tendulkar, the match-fixing controversy could have debilitated the game in the Indian subcontinent. It was primarily because of his personal and professional credibility that Indian cricket could emerge from that crisis relatively unaffected.

In the Hindustan Times, Pradeep Magazine says preserving Test cricket would be a real tribute to Tendulkar.

The same paper also carries an image montage of Tendulkar as well as snippets from Navjot Singh Sidhu and Atul Ranade, a very close friend of the man himself.

The Wanderers on December 13, 1992, is vivid for writes Vijay Lokapally. The one-day match over, the Indian team, soundly beaten, was limping back. From the comfort of the press box one saw Tendulkar take off suddenly, chasing a burly South African supporter. That night he would have outpaced the fastest man on earth. He closed in on the prankster and brought him down in a flash. Read more in the Hindu.

Nirmal Shekar believes it is impossible to outgrow Indian sport’s most celebrated boy wonder.

Outlook's Rohit Mahajan says the media, as always and like everyone, wants a piece of him, and Tendulkar knows it's part of the deal, goes through the inquisition with immeasurable patience, trying to ensure that everyone's happy.

Jacques Kallis is an old dog who has learnt new tricks thanks to Twenty20 but blushes at Kevin Pietersen's claim that he's the best ever, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent. Sometime in the next few weeks when he takes his second wicket in the one-day series, he will become the only player to have scored 10,000 runs and taken 250 wickets in both Tests and one-dayers.

Today Kallis plays his 10th Twenty20 match for South Africa. It is a form of the game that many would have spurned to preserve their careers elsewhere. In his case T20 might not only have prolonged his career but embellished it. He has become a different type of cricketer, particularly as a batsman, though he has added new tricks to his muscular seam bowling to confound what is said about old dogs.

Swann, England's first-choice spinner, offers far more to the team than the best banter on the bus. While his contributions to this summer's series – 14 wickets and 249 runs – may not sound the stuff of legend, his performances came at crucial times; when the Australian batsmen were threatening to take a game away from England, his appearance in the attack, skipping through his delivery stride with his wraparound sunglasses clinging to his head like Robocop, was a comforting sight. Swann's irrepressible batting was also vital in a series where the lower order did much of the best work on both sides; and he took eight wickets in the deciding Test at the Oval, including the final one to win the Ashes. Forget 2005, says Swann, for him, this was the best Ashes series ever. "It still gives me goosebumps..."